We’re caught in a trap of our own making when we believe we had nothing to do with how we got to our current station in life. It’s a blind spot.

It’s so easy to blame circumstance or someone else. I remember reading this James Allen quote from his 1903 book “As A Man Thinketh“: “Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.”

To quote The Grasshopper, “When someone is hiding a jackass, they send out a scapegoat.”

The mantra of the blind spot belief system is this: “It’s not my fault.”

Where you are now is the result of a recipe. If you retrace your steps, you will find the exact way you baked your cake. Whether it’s moist and delicious or has a burnt crust, it was your actions or inactions that produced your current circumstances.

We enjoy taking credit for the “good” things we’ve produced, but for the “bad” things, not so much.

We have conditioned ourselves to blame. It’s a coping mechanism we have learned to use when we don’t want to take responsibility for our actions. We’ve deflected so often that “this is not on me” becomes a fervent belief.

The quickest way to remove the blinders is to pretend that it is your fault. Sidebar: In most cases, you won’t be pretending. Just try on the mantle of responsibility more often than you do and you’ll recondition yourself to know “it’s on you.”

We all get ourselves into jams. The way out begins with acknowledging we had a hand in it. That admission keeps us from forever stalling with denials, and moves us more quickly to possible solutions.

You can continue to play the childhood game “Blind Man’s Bluff” and stay stuck, or recognize that it’s the mark of an adult to play the hand you dealt yourself.

All the best,

John